Isle of the Dead (2016) User Reviews

Mediocre to the bone...

[paul_haakonsen · 5/10 · 28 November 2016]

Of course I would have to sit down to watch a movie such as "Isle of the Dead", given the fact that it is another zombie movie. And anything even remotely zombie will be appealing to me.

However, I didn't really have much hope or expectations for "Isle of the Dead". Which turned out to be for the best, because this was a very generic and mediocre movie, even for a zombie movie.

The story was adequate enough, though. It is about a small group of soldiers set afoot on a remote and isolated island where they are to discover the disappearance of a previous group of soldiers and also to seek out the chief scientist of a research facility.

It does seem quite like a simplistic storyline, doesn't it? Well, right, because it was. But hey, most zombie movies can't really boast with having intricate and elaborated plot lines and story lines. However, it turned out to be fair enough.

As for the acting in the movie, well I will say that people were doing good enough jobs with their given roles and characters, and taking into consideration the magnitude of the script and storyline. However, it was a shame that Sydney Viengluang didn't have a bigger part than she did, because she does perform quite well in the "Z Nation" zombie TV series.

The special effects in "Isle of the Dead" were actually quite good, taking into consideration the production level of the movie. However, they tended to fall into that classic error of zombie movies, where they put lots of make-up on the face, then forget about the neck and the rest of the body. A classic and stupid rookie mistake to make.

One thing that didn't sit well with me was the über-zombies, the ones that got out of containment and were able to speak and make coherent thinking and planning (for some reason). It just added a level of stupidity to the movie. And also, the ridiculous showdown between the two über-zombies towards the end of the movie was just like a slap to the face with a dead herring. Wow, that was awful.

All in all, then "Isle of the Dead" turned out to be a very genetic and mediocre addition to the zombie movie catalogue. There is nothing noteworthy to be had in "Isle of the Dead", and whether or not you watch it will have little impact on your extended take on the zombie genre.

Now that I have seen it, I can check it off the zombie-watch-list. However, I doubt that I will ever make a second trip back to watch this ever again.

Isle of the Dead

[Scarecrow-88 · 5/10 · 20 August 2016]

Joey Lawrence (Blossom) and Maryse Mizanin (pro wrestler, Miz's wife) lead Navy Seals into an island to find a doctor left there for 10 years. DC Douglas is that scientist working on a serum to counteract a zombie virus that stemmed (supposedly) from his colleague's (Eric St. John) tinkering with science resulting in the undead spreading throughout the island.

There's all the machine gun fire into the heads of zombies violence in the recognized style of the Asylum productions (very much in the vein of Z-Nation) you come to expect. The "anomalies" zombies are a frightening bunch (good make-up work and the way they shoot them is damned effective; their noise and rabid, unhinged behavior, barely locked away in a room, sets up a foreknowing of what could lie in wait for the heroes), but the combat at the end when Mizanin and Douglas (it is revealed they are daughter and father) duke it out with zombies led by Douglas' rival St. John is just too much…that and I swear one of the sound effects when Mizanin stabs a zombie head makes a chocolate syrup bottle squirt sound! Lawrence is all business and never allows the film to upend his serious take on the character and his mission. There's this bomb that will detonate giving the soldiers only so much time to find Douglas and his work and get the hell off the island. Mizanin is dead set on retrieving information and serum so that her father's work was not in vain and would benefit her superiors. Maryse is French and so her character was written as a scientist included in the group of soldiers, accompanying them in the sole purpose of finding that information important to the military, responsible for the base on the island to begin with. Maryse gets to go all "undead badass" at the end which made the film rather laughable yet charming at the same time. There's this one scene I really liked involving Douglas showing the soldiers some of his "pets", zombies he had encased in cages for constant study…one of the zombies had bulging pores and this mutated, diseased face just peering maniacally at them from behind the glass.

Douglas never should have been trusted, yet the film turns him, oddly, into a sort of hero when battling St. John (mainly because Maryse is badly injured by him) at the end. His twitchy and aggressive behavior is never trustworthy, and when he's told he will be divorced or distanced from the location of his work (and the thought of his work being "stolen", altered, and credited to others), the others should have realized that he was dangerous…ummm, and when he turns out to be a zombie, only humanized by a serum which wears off eventually, that might have been a definite sign that he was a peril to them all. Not to let the bugs get left out, some crawl into (and under) the skin of a soldier and eat him inside out (coming out of his eye even!). Zombies eat, too…can't leave that out, right?

Not as bad as everyone is saying... *Spoilers*

[AndyVanScoyoc · 5/10 · 15 May 2018]

As a long time movie reviewer, I've seen a LOT worse...with a bigger budget, better known actors and mega marketing.

As you've seen in other reviews, this zombie movie ties in with a new strain of the Ebola virus and altering it to make the perfect military application.

Okay, cliche...but as original as any other zombie movies I've seen lately.

The make up was pretty good and while some of the acting left a lot to be desired, some others were good.

As I said, not great but certainly not as bad as some of the reviews are saying.

I've watched it a couple of times. I definitely recommend it..

Another Lame Sci-Fi Production

[claudio_carvalho · 2/10 · 22 December 2016]

In an isolated island in South Pacific, there is an outbreak in a top-secret military facility where Colonel Aiden Wexler (D.C. Douglas) is researching biological weapon. Ten years later, a small squad is sent to the island to investigate the status of the facility. They shall contact their helicopter a couple of hours later; otherwise the place will be bombed and totally destroyed. Along their journey, they are attacked by zombies and when they reach the building, they find Aiden alive. Out of the blue, Dr. Mikaela Usylvich (Maryse Ouellet Mizanin) that is assisting the mission discloses that is Aiden's daughter.

"Isle of the Dead" is another lame Sci-Fi production, with another terrible story and awful acting. The zombie story is senseless and the situations are quite ridiculous. Why a military squad with a few soldiers should be sent to a doomed island ten years after an incident? If the intention would be to see whether there are zombies or not, wouldn't be easier to monitor using a satellite? The insane Colonel Aiden Wexler contaminates Pugh and attacks three other soldiers. Why he was not killed when he was found? Instead, the survivors bring Aiden, who is contaminated, with them. My vote is two.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

No entertainment here!

[kensai-5 · 2/10 · 17 January 2019]

I just wanted to leave a fair warning for people who are curious enough about "Isle of the Dead" to browse this section of IMDb. The rating and many of the reviews apply an impression of the movie being mediocre. I'm not sure if maybe people nowadays have a distorted understanding of the term "mediocre"? I usually use it to describe something being average, right in the center between "good" and "bad", not having features that justify becoming positively excited about, but also not in a region to evoke anger or similarly negative feelings.

There isn't anything that I could imagine to happen that would make an averagely intelligent person use the term "mediocre" after seeing this movie. Even the makeup, which might pass as average in a competently lit production, is degraded by the director's absence of talent and skill. With, let's say, a "mediocre" amount of perception and experience with movies, it isn't difficult to notice when, where and how to use the lighting available in the sets of this production, to an effect that might efficiently utilize mood, atmosphere and suspense. Like most incapable directors nowadays, Nick Lyon decided to leave these aspects to the sound design, with the idea that you can get an audience to react with tension when loud noise is constantly wearing down their nerves. As a consequence, instead of having zombies that unnerve due to subtle movement discrepancies, giving the observer a growing feeling that something is wrong with that person, standing unstably in the dim light, you get screaming, fidgeting clown-zombies that pound their chests and cheer on the stronger leader-zombies, as they all macho-jerk through brightly lit tunnels, clearly exposing their rubber masks and unevenly painted faces.

The action almost solely consists of shootouts with zombies appearing suddenly and silently out of nowhere, giving this amazing contrast of them behaving as impeccable ninjas until a *camera* (that is to say "the movie audience") has sight of them, which immediately turns them into screaming berserkers, regardless of whether a living human is anywhere near them or not. The remaining 20% of the action are ambitious but inappropriate melee fights, where soldiers decide to not use their ample time to shoot zombies but brawl them until they fall to the ground, a good distance away, and THEN open fire at them. Sarcasm aside, I might give the movie credit for at least decently ambitious melee combat. Sadly, it's getting lost on the dumb situations it is being used in. Just like any element of a movie, it won't cause excitement if it doesn't have a believable purpose and if nothing relatable is at stake.

Like most Asylum movies, Isle of the Dead doesn't have an actual story. Their usual filmmaking process is to acquire a couple of sets that can serve as a location for a shallow plagiarization idea and slap a quickly improvised script on top, that rudimentarily ties the places and events together. The sets for this movie are "jungle", "abandoned factory site" and "abandoned science lab". The script clumsily touches on the usual subjects connected to the zombie genre, without caring about logic or coherence. Regardless of that, the movie isn't shy to fill a sizable amount of its run time with dialog, that after a while becomes painful to listen to.

My recommendation is to avoid this movie and try something less conventional, like "The Girl with all the Gifts" (2016) or something smarter, like "Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead" (2014) (the movie, not the TV series).

There have been better and there have been worse *Spoiler Alert*

[ffxaxrx · 2/10 · 29 April 2019]

I love zombie movies and I take the worse ones with a grain of salt in terms by accepting the premise and concentrating on the acting. Now to my review of Isle of the Dead. So basically, the military was sent in to the island 10 years after the incident briefly showed in the first 20 mins of the movie. Now, they were sent on a mission to find out what became of the groups and teams stationed on the island. In zombie movie fashion, the team is sent in about 8 Seal team members with one doctor/scientist. As soon as they land, they are attacked and Joey Lawerence's character is in charge after their captain is killed by the zombies. They make their way to the research facility encountering the lone survivor who injects himself with the zombie-causing vaccine and that the team's doctor is the daughter of the lone survivor. Everyone on the team except for Joey Lawerence has turned or is killed. Joey Lawerence's character manages to nuke the island thus destroying the biological research center. Acting was piss poor. Joey Lawerence's character has the emotional range of a rock. He was not believable as a Navy SEAL and could not have done a worse job as an actor. He just slept through his role. The doctor portrayal was ridiculous and it begged the questions of whether she was on the mission to find out what happened to the research facility or to find her father (SPOILER). The lone survivor the Father is completely nuts and you can see it. What is completely unbelievable is the fact he kidnaps the soldiers and experiments on them but somehow does not pay for what he has done. Joey L's character merely points a gun at him. The other SEAL team members go down in hilarious fashion and commenting on the bad acting would be a waste of space and time here. Now, what was funny was the zombie behavior which was way more ridiculous on anti-social rather than zombie behavior. They were jumping around and challenging each other which was based on when they were injected or infected with the "zombie" vaccine. The scene sequence towards the movie's end when they were all fighting was downright stupid. The team doctor injected herself and fought one fo the "evil" zombies and was saved by her zombie father. The premise could have shown promise if they did not take this course. A weaponized ebola virus destroying the facility and the military sent in to investigate and mitigate any potential disasters would have been a good idea. Th movie script was bad. The acting as I said earlier was pretty thin and unbelievable. The flow was pretty light and did not stagnate at any time during the movie. The bigger questions: How do zombies survive for 10 years? How could the Navy SEALS have a character like Joey Lawerence in their group? How can the team doctor egg Joey L's character into decisions? How would the Colonel be able to corral the "outliers" into the cage? When the doctor was in the lab looking for information about the zombie vaccine on the computer, how can that computer be in the same system for security? Instead of deciding what to investigate about the research facility, why didn't they just nuke or drop some bunk buster bombs to clear out the island? Also, 10 years after the incident or losing contact, couldn't other countries have gone in and seen what has happened?

Lot's of great makeup!

[clive-13 · 9 November 2016]

Isle of the Dead has great promise. Of course, the basic plot line is as old as the hills. However, the acting is above par for this kind of film and the camera work and continuity is good. What really raises the film above the thousand (or so it seems) zombie flicks released in the last five years is the amazing zombie makeup and the very realistic special effects. The blood and brains fly on a constant basis and the zombies seem to attack in nearly ever scene. So...some spoilers... Government science lab in the south Pacific where secret experiments go very awry....zombies are the result. Lots of zombies. Crack military team is sent in 10 years later to check for survivors and check out the scene. The huge military labs are investigated and lots of bullets fly. There are also lots of dead and rotted bodies decorating the hallways and offices of said labs. Amazing! The female doctor with the military jocks suddenly finds her father is alive and is the lead scientist that you assume released the secret serum by accident or not? Well, I enjoyed this film up to near the end when it sank into a morass of bullets and black belt fighting with the seemingly endless supply of zombies. As I said the makeup and special effects, camera work, continuity and reasonable acting elevates this to a watchable film. However, by the last 20 minutes I felt like a zombie with the overdone and endless fighting. Oh, I forgot to tell you...the military jocks have just 10 hours to do what their supposed to do.....or BOOM! Just a small nuclear device will visit this lovely tropical island and say goodbye to all zombies and any of our hero group!!! One other little twist....the woman doctor who finds her father is responsible for this hideous this zombie horror have a lovely little coming home to daddy moment. This scene comes at the very end of the film... but not in the way one would think! I give this a 6 out of 10. If you like zombies give this a look.

The entire movie was so annoying.

[gutieboy · 1/10 · 31 October 2017]

Probably the worst zombie movie ever made, this feature film should be considered "unwatchable". It takes place on an island that government scientists are experimenting with a mutated strand of the ebola virus. The characters are poorly developed and far removed from their real life counterparts. Navy seals are sent with a really annoying woman CIA agent to assess and recover any research and survivors. The problems is these seals don't act like seals . They seem more concerned with saving infected people, than actually assessing the situation. From start to finish it's horrible acting. Poor set design. Unrealistic make-up and effects. Even the chopper shot in the beginning of the film looks computer animated. There were also really dumb weapons that cannot Exist, such as, a nuke enabled RPG.

Goof

[beding · 1/10 · 22 July 2021]

Near the end when Joey Lawrence picks up the bazooka, you can see a car zipping by on the HIGHWAY behind him.

Bad movie, no story, very bad acting.

[amc-51261 · 1/10 · 16 July 2021]

This movie was a wast of my time. The solders had pictures of grenade's on there jackets?

The main female actress was very bad. Story was bad, special affects and make up were average.

Navy SEALs? REALLY?

[tiskec · 2/10 · 15 April 2019]

First of all the acting in this movie is so bad. The supposed SEAL team isn't even close to believable. They look like a bunch of candy-ass high school kids whose balls just dropped yesterday. Between that and the terrible acting, this movie pissed me off very early on. I turned it off very early on and didn't finish watching it.

Fun Ride! Military-Zombie-Science Movie

[Rachaels_Apocalypse · 8/10 · 20 August 2018]

I don't know what movie all the Negative Nancy's were watching, but from my seat the movie was a fun from the start military-zombie-science movie. Sure there wasn't much character development, nor was the script all that deep. But it was an overall fun spin on our favorite theme. With great scenery, costumes, and just fine zombies. And speaking of the zombies, there was a nice twist or two. No spoilers. ;) Overall, it was fun to watch beginning to end. At the end my family was looking at me funny as I was yelling over and over a particular phrase. I was definitely invested. So of course it's not a big budget film that's going to win an Oscar. It's meant to be. It was created to be what it is. Pure zombie lover's enjoyment. And it absolutely delivers!

Solid and enjoyable Sci-Fi Channel zombie effort

[kannibalcorpsegrinder · 7/10 · 5 February 2017]

Years after a zombie outbreak, a team of soldiers sent to the island stronghold of a reclusive doctor finds his studies on a deadly virus program has unleashed a swarm of zombies on the island and must try to hold off the increasingly intelligent beings to get off alive.

This one wasn't all that bad but it did have its flaws. One of the few things that does come off rather nicely is the zombie action within this one, which tends to follow the channel's standards of action content within here. The film's switches from the short, brief scenarios to the longer, more involved set-ups makes for a good time here when it features the battles with the creatures, from the opening scenes of the compound being overrun and taking out the entire team of soldiers and scientists in the facility's wings and corridors that starts this one off rather nicely, the first scenes of their attack in the jungle where the creatures come pouring out of the jungle walls in waves after them is a strong and effective outing while their confrontation with the horde later on in the underground sections of the entire island coming alive in the facility trying to take them out resulting in constant and continuous gun-battles to hold them off as they retreat from the compound through the rest of the island trying to get to safety that's actually exceptionally fun. When this one gets into the shorter encounters, there's some more fun as these are based more on short, quick gunfights which are fun and thrilling, yet the highlight of it all is the series of rather fun and brutal zombie- on-zombie brawls that really makes this one end on a higher note than expected. Coupled with the rather fun zombie make-up and a nice amount of gore, there's a lot to like with this one. There's still some rather sizable flaws, starting with the rather lame story that really makes no sense at all here. There's little reason for them to even be attempting to weaponize a product the way they state here, and it really manages to strain credibility the way it goes for the group returning after such an extended absence that doesn't seem to show any kind of residual damage in the intervening years. Not only that, but the internal logic within this one comes into question with the idea of being unable to trust their potential prisoner yet continuously do so, long after the time to distrust them becomes obvious, which all make the story here quite hard to swallow. Likewise, there's also the fact that the film also features the same rather lame CGI for the vast majority of its gore and bloodshed sequences that it becomes quite detrimental and distracting during the zombie carnage which really comes off a lot more amateurishly than expected. As some might also question the use of the zombies gaining new abilities here with the enhanced speech and recognition factors, it's not enough to lower this against the other small flaws.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Language.

I've seen worse

[lagg-62160 · 5/10 · 21 September 2019]

The actors did a good job with the script they were given. The scientist wants to preserve scientific data, the soldiers want to kill everything and get out, and the mad scientist wants to continue his work. The usual stuff.

It's the video editing that I had the biggest problem with. There's one scene where Lawrence is running through the "jungle" and we see a highway behind him and a car zip by. I assume they were supposed to CGI that out, or maybe put CGI zombies in the car, but they must have spent the entire CGI budget on the bugs, which had nothing to do with the main plot. Either the director had to limit the bugs plot device due to time and budget constraints or added it as an afterthought. That scene could have been fixed by simply cutting it just before the highway comes into view. And another scene shows an attack helicopter flying in instead of a transport. I was wondering if the military had sent that one to give them cover fire, but no, it was just an amateur mistake. Maybe it was a placeholder scene that was supposed to be replaced by the CGI transport chopper that brought them in.

The director had a serious problem with continuity. The guy leading the soldiers gets ambushed but nobody can find him, despite him pointing out seconds earlier that they all had transmitters so they could be found. The mad scientist has a horde of zombies eating him, but apparently he regenerated his eaten flesh so he could run off and fight the lead uber zombie. Since the infected don't normally eat other infected in these types of movies, it would have made more sense for the rest of the zombies to have ignored him and just had the fight scene. That would also have explained how he was able to move around the island without being swarmed and he had told them he used a special path to cover up his condition at the time. People finding a small device that was dropped during a fight on a large island. And while it is actually possible to fit a nuclear device into something as small as a tank shell or shoulder fired rocket, using one at that close a range is usually suicide. It was done purely for the "put us out of our misery" drama.

There were some good scenes. One soldier trying to pull a zombie off another pulls the zombie's arms off. The infected screaming in agony instead of the typical staggering around going "I don't feel so good" and then poof, zombie. Zombies with machine guns. Could have done so much more with that. Zombie vs zombie fist fights. And the touching zombie daddy loves his zombie daughter and is sorry for what happened, while zombie daughter gives him "get away from me" looks.

Not a bad movie overall, but an occasional "woah" from Lawrence would have made it better.

For anyone who is/was a Navy Seal ...

[kardosma · 2/10 · 26 June 2020]

... this movie is a rank insult. Unless the Seals are suddenly recruiting any old gormless moron who wanders in the door, then this clueless, unobservant, gang of chestbeaters, wimpy screaming females who can't fight worth a damn, and an annoyingly smug 'french CIA scientist' woman (I assume that's what the peroxide queen was meant to be..?) is just a joke, right?

Sigh.

This is kind of more like a bad military action movie with incidental zombie enemies...

Watch if that's your thing :)

Why? Why did I watch another Asylum movie?

[RedQuinn · 2/10 · 27 March 2017]

If you're looking for a serious summary of this movie, click the back button and read it or check out another review. If someone asked me to review this movie, I'd ask them if they've heard of The Asylum. If they said yes, I'd say it's The Asylum's version of Resident Evil. If they said no, I would say one word: Sharknado.

I've seen a lot of Asylum movies; usually when I come home drunk late at night and the SyFy channel is playing them. They're usually so terrible that you have no choice but to laugh, but this? No. Joey Lawrence was the only "actor" whose name I recognized, and he's horrible, so I figured I'd be laughing the whole time. Once again, no. Not one laugh the entire movie. After watching this garbage, I came here and found out the blonde is some WWE wrestler and her dad is the guy who does Albert Wesker's voice in the Resident Evil games. I've been playing those games on and off since the first one, so the latter is really disappointing. They even named him Aiden Wexler which I never even noticed while watching the film. Once again, not funny. My last complaint would be the horrible military tactics of a "special forces" unit (flagging each other non-stop would be the biggest), but then again, this is an Asylum movie, so you can't expect much. I know they'd never spend money on a military adviser who was actually in a combat MOS.

TL;DR It's an Asylum movie, but it's WAY worse than usual.

what a load of crap

[coflorida · 1/10 · 17 July 2020]

From beginning to end....

Two seals WITH GUNS overpowered by the scientist if that isn't enough... he's able to get the upper hand on another two seals... and infect one.... ( as if he didn't already have TONS of guinea pigs to work on)

His daughter was equally annoying and Joey's character wasn't any better.

Yup, it's about an island full of terrorizing zombies

[Wuchakk · 5/10 · 29 April 2019]

After a ten-year quarantine, a military squad is sent to a remote island in the South Pacific, which contains a (supposedly) defunct biological warfare laboratory. Their mission is to acquire vital records, but they have to fight off hordes of zombies to do so. Joey Lawrence plays an officer and Maryse Mizanin a French medic. D.C. Douglas is on hand as the proverbial mad doctor.

"Isle of the Dead" (2016) is an Asylum flick that energetically gives you what you pay for: An island swarming with zombies and protagonists trying to get out alive. It's low-budget and decidedly comic booky, but enthusiastic and relatively compelling. Maryse is cute in blue cammies.

The film runs 1 hour, 30 minutes and was shot in the Los Angeles area (Terminal Island, San Pedro & Palos Verdes).

GRADE: C+

Love me some cheesy zombie movie!

[angeladevillier · 7/10 · 13 December 2018]

Ok, it's not your top notch zombie movie, but who cares!!!! It was fun to watch. Yes the acting was not to good from some of the actors, but I love Joey Lawrence in anything he plays in!! I'm a big WWE fan and wanted to see Maryse Mizanin, she was pretty good, not a Jody foster but I enjoyed it. Some of the other actors were to over the top but all in all I just like zombie movies!!!! Call it a guilty pleasure! Lol

For Asylum it's best picture worthy.

[amesmonde · 16 March 2021]

A team of soldiers are sent to an island where a reclusive doctor has been working on a deadly virus programme, soon they find themselves fighting off a horde of zombies for survival.

For an Asylum production this is an above average offering from director Nick Lysons. Thankfully it's played serious and benefits from an on location shoot rather than cheap sets. The zombie make-up holds up for the budget. Christopher Cano and Chris Ridenhour score compliments the great cinematography by Laura Beth Lov. This is where Lyon's and crew shine. If nothing else Isle of the Dead looks fantastic.

It features enhanced zombies with plenty of head shots, blood and a nice amount of gore. It's a pity the overuse of CGI takes you out some moments. Writers Jacob Cooney and Brandon Trenz screenplay is at times overtly talky, borrowing dialogue from better films.

The cast are a mixed bag. Notable is Maryse Mizanin with an accent to die for as Mikaela Usylvich who has some memorable moments. D.C. Douglas as Colonel Aiden Wexle echoes Day of the Dead's Richard LibertyLogan, while channeling William Shatner.

Overall, it's yet another addition to an already saturated genre, but in its league it's one of the better additions. For Asylum, it's Best Picture and Director worthy.